


i like you

by The_Eclectic_Bookworm



Series: firsts [3]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 21:34:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14756724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Eclectic_Bookworm/pseuds/The_Eclectic_Bookworm
Summary: Everything seemed—easy, with her, all of a sudden. Effortless, and without the sharp edges.(set after school hard)





	i like you

There wasn’t all that much talking after they left the high school. Jenny was sitting in the front seat of his car, his jacket still draped around her shoulders, and Giles was driving her home, and both of them had small, content smiles on their faces—a bit unusual for two people who had been barricaded in a library on Parent-Teacher Night, but not unusual at all when one considered how lonely those two people had been, and for how long. Jenny’s hand rested on Giles’s over the steering wheel.

He walked her to the door, and this time, she said, “Would you like to come in?”

* * *

 

It was—soft. Tender. It took both of them by surprise. Giles had been expecting something fiery in its passion, the dizzy-angry way he’d felt in those first days of knowing her magnified to a delicious extreme. Jenny, who hadn’t known anything _but_ passion, hadn’t thought to think beyond it. But the way she kissed his neck and his hands, the careful, gentle way he tugged her shirt over her head, that was something they weren’t accustomed to. A world unto itself.

After, Jenny was lying, tangled in the bedsheets, hair mussed and lipstick almost artfully smudged, and Giles was going to stay the night in the arms of someone he might be falling in love with. “I like you,” he said. It felt woefully inadequate and horrifyingly honest at the same time.

“ _Really,_ ” said Jenny, and quirked a grin at him. “This is definitely news to me.”

“Oh, hush,” said Giles, grinning, and rested his forehead against hers. She laughed, a sweet sound he wasn’t quite used to hearing. Everything seemed—easy, with her, all of a sudden. Effortless, and without the sharp edges. “I do,” he said, reveling in the knowledge. “I like you. I like you very much.”

“I like you too,” said Jenny, and there was that sweet, shy smile on her face that he was beginning to realize only came out around him. It felt fragile and strange to be faced with the fact that this was someone who _trusted_ him, implicitly. It was something he didn’t want to waste. “And you’re better at sex than I thought you’d be.”

“Not _one_ sentimental moment with this one,” said Giles dramatically, and kissed Jenny’s neck as she dissolved into giggles. “Tell me, then,” he murmured against her throat, “how _did_ you think I’d be?”

“I don’t kno-ow!” Jenny’s voice lilted upwards in something that was half gasp, half laugh. “I was just _saying—_ ”

“You _just say_ too much,” said Giles, and nipped at her shoulder. Jenny squeaked (he _loved_ the sounds he’d been drawing out of her tonight, gasps and moans and half-coherent sentences) and he felt her hands in his hair as he raised his head to kiss her. “You and I both know you wouldn’t have come to bed with me if you didn’t think I was good at what I did.”

“Debatable,” said Jenny, her nose brushing against his. “Maybe I was just enamored by that cute thing you do with your mouth.”

“Do go on.”

“Absolutely _not,_ ” said Jenny, a slow smile spreading across her face, “you’re gonna get a big head and I’ll have to live with the shame of knowing I caused it.”

“My head’s plenty big already, Jenny, you know that,” said Giles, and kissed her again, feeling her giggle against his mouth. “ _Do_ tell me what I do with my mouth—”

“It’s this little—oh, I don’t know—you smile all soft and your eyes crinkle up at the edges,” said Jenny with a half-nervous affection. “I guess—I just, I like seeing you smile. I like that.”

Giles felt himself smiling before he consciously realized he was doing it. “You make me smile,” he said. Lord, but they were foolishly romantic, if only in this moment.

Jenny smiled a little too and kissed him one last, lingering time before tucking her head into the crook of his neck with a contented sigh. “I’m glad tomorrow’s a Saturday,” she said. “I wanna sleep in, I think.”

“I rather like that idea,” Giles said.

He expected some playfully incisive comment from Jenny, something about how the workaholic Watcher was _finally_ taking a day off, but when he looked down at her, he saw that her eyes were closed and her breathing was evening out. It occurred to him that he hadn’t seen her asleep before, at least not like this, and it felt—god, indescribably wonderful, being this close to someone.

No. No—being this close to _her._ To Jenny. Jenny, with a peaceful expression on her face that Giles couldn’t tear his eyes away from. She was always in motion, and it was so unusual and lovely to see her still and safe next to him. He kissed the top of her head, burying his face briefly in her soft, sweet-smelling hair, then closed his eyes himself.

* * *

Jenny woke up feeling warm and happy. It was unusual, a little jarring, for someone who had become used to a consistent emptiness in her life ever since finding herself in Sunnydale. But then she’d always been a bit of a lonely oddball by nature, even back when she was living where she wanted to be living, and waking up with a fluttery contentment in her chest was something that threw her off in those first bleary seconds of half-awakeness.

Then she turned her head and realized exactly why she felt so comfortable, and the feeling intensified. Rupert was all the way awake, looking quietly up at her ceiling, and the morning sunlight shone through and seemed to catch in his silver-brown hair. Fuck, but he was beautiful. “Did you paint constellations on your ceiling?” he asked her softly, tracing absent circles on her shoulder.

“I was bored one weekend,” said Jenny. “They’re not precise—”

“They’re damn close,” said Rupert admiringly, and Jenny found herself smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> didn't intend to write a follow-up to closeness until i realized that i had yet another Very Specific Headcanon that i’d never written: i.e. that jenny & giles definitely had sex after school hard.


End file.
